UCLA UCLA Entertainment Law Review Title Inside the FBI Inspections of Adult Movie Company Age-Verification Records: A Dialogue with Special Agent Chuck Joyner Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7t00r79n Journal UCLA Entertainment Law Review, 15(1) ISSN 1073-2896 Authors Calvert, Clay Richards, Robert D. Publication Date 2008 DOI 10.5070/LR8151027106 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Inside the FBI Inspections of Adult Movie Company Age-Verification Records: A Dialogue with Special Agent Chuck Joyner Clay Calvert* & Robert D. Richards** I. INTRODUCTION ........................................... 56 II. THE SETTING AND METHODOLOGY ...................... 62 III. THE INTERVIEW .......................................... 63 A. The man in charge: Special Agent Chuck Joyner's per- spective on the progress of the section 2257 inspections ........................................... 64 B. The lawyers' take: Viewpoints of two veteran adult in- dustry attorneys on the section 2257 inspections to date . ....... ......................................... 79 1. Gregory Piccionelli, Esq ......................... 79 2. Jeffrey Douglas, Esq ............................. 82 IV. ANALYSIS & CONCLUSION ............................... 83 * John and Ann Curley Professor of First Amendment Studies and Co-Director of the Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment at The Pennsylvania State University. B.A., 1987, Communication, Stanford University; J.D. (Order of the Coif), 1991, McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific; Ph.D., 1996, Communication, Stanford University. Member, State Bar of California. ** Distinguished Professor of Journalism & Law and Founding Co-Director of the Penn- sylvania Center for the First Amendment at The Pennsylvania State University. B.A., 1983, M.A. 1984, Communication, The Pennsylvania State University; J.D., 1987, The American University. Member, State Bar of Pennsylvania. The authors thank Benjamin Cramer and Lauren DeCarvalho of The Pennsylvania State University for reviewing and proofing a draft of this article. 56 UCLA ENTERTAINMENT LAW REVIEW [Vol. 15:1 I. INTRODUCTION Aggressive enforcement of federal obscenity1 laws. 2 It's an obvi- ous government strategy for stanching the billion-dollar stream3 of sex- ually explicit adult movies that flow out of southern California's San Fernando Valley4 each year. The federal government, in fact, had four major obscenity prosecutions underway across the nation in 2007 targeting such content,5 after a virtual dormancy of prosecutor- 1 Obscene expression is "not within the area of constitutionally protected speech or press." Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 485 (1957). The current test for obscenity, which was established by the United States Supreme Court in Miller v. California,413 U.S. 15 (1973), focuses on whether the material at issue: 1) appeals to a prurient interest in sex, when taken as a whole and as judged by contemporary community standards from the per- spective of the average person; 2) is patently offensive, as defined by state law; and 3) lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. Miller at 24. 2 See 18 U.S.C. §§ 1461 - 1467 (2007) (setting forth the terms of the relevant federal obscenity statutes). 3 See Beth Barrett, It's a $12 Billion Industry, But the Profits Go Elsewhere, L.A. DAILY NEWS, June 5, 2007, at N1 (writing that "[t]he San Fernando Valley's adult-entertainment industry - long considered the epicenter of the business - rakes in about $1 billion annually, with more than 200 local companies jump-starting a national market worth about $12 billion a year," and reporting that adult firms in the area netted "40 percent of the nation's $2.4 billion in annual X-rated video sales and rentals"). 4 Pornography is "the San Fernando Valley's great, unspoken business" and it "has been a major factor in the Valley's development, providing jobs, money and the people who have made up this community for decades." Brent Hopkins, The Adult Movie Business Has Come A Long Way, L.A. DAILY NEWS, June 3, 2007, at Ni. So much adult entertainment content is produced in this area that it sometimes is referred to as Porn Valley. See, e.g., Brad A. Greenberg, Frisky Kitty Battle Lands In Judge's Lap, L.A. DAILY NEWS, July 17, 2006, at N1 (writing that the San Fernando Valley is "known to some as Porn Valley since it is home to most of the nation's pornography industry"); Sharon Mitchell, How to Put Condoms in the Picture, N.Y. TIMES, May 2, 2004, at Section 4, 11 (describing the San Fernando Valley as "Porn Valley" and contending that it is "where much of the sex-film industry is based"). ' One case, United States v. Extreme Associates, Inc., already has worked its way up to the United States Supreme Court once before coming back down to the district court level, where it currently is pending before U.S. District Court Judge Gary Lancaster in Pittsburgh, Pa. United States v. Extreme Associates, Inc., 352 F. Supp. 2d 578 (W.D. Pa. 2005), rev'd, 431 F.3d 150 (3d Cir. 2005), cert. denied, 126 S. Ct. 2048 (2006). In July 2007, the defendants' second motion to dismiss the case was denied. United States v. Extreme Associates, Inc., 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55431 (W.D. Pa. 2007). The case, targeting southern California- based Extreme Associates and its proprietors, Robert Zicari and Janet Romano, has been described as a "major test of the Bush administration's campaign against pornography." Eric Lichtblau, Justice Dept. Fights Ruling on Obscenity, N.Y. TIMES, Feb. 17, 2005, at A25. A second case, United States v. Five Star Video, L.C., targets southern California's JM Pro- ductions and is pending in Phoenix, Ariz. See Indictment, United States v. Five Star Video, L.C. (D. Ariz. May 23, 2006), available at http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/pr/pressreleases/ 2006/06/2006_4616_2 06-01-06obscenityfivestarindict.pdf (last visited Aug. 30, 2007); Press Release, U.S. Dep't of Justice, Federal Grand Jury Charges Arizona And California Compa- nies And Their Owners With Obscenity Violations (June 1, 2006), available at http://www.us doj.gov/opa/pr/2006/June/06 crm 343.html (last visited Aug. 30, 2007) (describing the case and noting that "Jeff Norton Productions of Chatsworth, California, also known as JM Pro- ductions, and Mike Leonard Norton, who resides in Woodland Hills, California, were 2008] FBI INSPECTIONS OF ADULT MOVIE COMPANY 57 ial activity in the 1990s under the administration of President Bill 6 Clinton. But proving to a jury today that sexual content involving con- senting adults is obscene, at a time when adult content has "peeled off its brown-paper wrapping ' 7 and is now mainstreamed8 in a sex-satu- charged with six counts of using an interstate common carrier to transport DVDs that are obscene"). See generally Scandal Moves to Porn?, XBiz VIDEO, Apr. 2007, at 26, 74 (describing how there are "four adult titles now at issue in the JM Productions obscenity trial," including "Filthy Things 6," "Gag Factor 15," "Gag Factor 18," and "American Buk- kake 13," and reporting that the case "remains a pending matter in the U.S. District Court for Arizona. No trial date has been set"). 6 As Hustler publisher Larry Flynt recently put it, "We didn't have any federal obscenity prosecutions when Clinton was president. Clinton was smart - he knew that it was an uphill battle, and there were other things that he should be spending his time on." Robert D. Richards & Clay Calvert, Obscenity Prosecutions and the Bush Administration: The Inside Perspective of the Adult Entertainment Industry & Defense Attorney Louis Sirkin, 14 VILL. SPORTS & ENT. L.J. 233, 275 (2007). Paul Little, the man better known as Max Hardcore who now is being prosecuted for obscenity in Tampa, Fla., agrees, stating that "Clinton was good for the industry, good for the economy, and he didn't get us involved in any quagmire wars. Things were going pretty good, but I knew that things could change and that if Repub- licans were to get in to office, it would be a real problem. Sure enough, what I thought was going to happen did happen." Id. at 276-277. See Mark Kernes, The War Against Porn Continues, PLAYBOY, Dec. 1, 2002, at 57 (writing that "Clinton took a hands-off approach (when asked why the administration didn't go after pornographers, former attorney General Janet Reno said that it had more important things to do)"); Cheryl Wetzstein, Clinton Told He Broke Promise to Give Anti-Porn Fight Priority, WASH. TIMES, Oct. 28, 1997, at A9 (reporting "Justice Department figures that show obscenity prosecutions under Attorney General Janet Reno have dropped by half or more compared with the Reagan or Bush administrations"). 7 Charles Foran, Damage on Parade, UTNE, Sept.-Oct. 2006, at 64. 8 As Stormy Daniels, a leading adult video actress today who had a crossover appearance in the mainstream hit movie "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," recently put it: Adult has become so much more mainstream. I think there are two reasons for it. One has nothing to do with adult - it has to do with MTV and Britney Spears. She was dancing on stage in outfits that I wouldn't wear on stage. Our stuff doesn't target young children at all. Second, you have that whole new fad of what I would call accidental porn stars like Paris Hilton. She had the hottest selling sex tape two years ago - two years in a row, I believe. Clay Calvert & Robert D. Richards, Porn in Their Words: Female Leaders in the Adult En- tertainment Industry Address Free Speech, Censorship, Feminism, Culture and the Main- streaming of Adult Content, 9 VAND. J. ENT. & TECH. L. 255, 291 (2006). Ron Jeremy, "'a short, fat, mustached porn star who in recent years has attained a measure of pop culture celebrity," agrees, noting that "[i]n the '70s, it was the hippy, dippy, outlandish, outlawish porn business.